


IT SUCKS BEING COLD

by later2nite



Category: Queer as Folk (US)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-30
Updated: 2012-04-30
Packaged: 2017-11-04 14:22:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/394825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/later2nite/pseuds/later2nite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p></p><div class="center">
  <p>Christmas Eve at Britin Manor, where the eggnog is killer strong!</p>
</div>
            </blockquote>





	IT SUCKS BEING COLD

[ ](http://s1121.photobucket.com/albums/l502/later2nite/?action=view&current=MarryfuckingChristmas3.jpg)

Banner by galehot on LJ

IT SUCKS BEING COLD

Frowning at the half-finished work of art propped on his easel, a nagging ambivalence he felt toward it churned in Justin's gut. Who in his right mind would buy this? he reproached himself, rubbing his weary eyes. Unable to shake his pervading depression, he locked up his studio and called it a day, wishing like hell he'd never come to New York in search of fame and success. Selling a whopping two whole paintings since he'd been in the city, the only thing he could successfully claim as his was failure. 

Justin pulled the woolen scarf tighter around his neck as he trudged back to the apartment he shared with Daphne's friend, the biting December cold seeping into his bones. What I wouldn't give for a triple latte from Starbucks, he thought, but that was before he remembered he didn't have a ten-dollar bill to his name.

"Jesus, Amy! It's colder in here than it is outside!" he bitched after climbing nine flights of stairs to the hole in the wall he called home. "What the fuck?" he cursed, making a mental note to find out why Daphne had neglected to inform him he'd be sharing space with a lunatic.

"Well, Justin, it was your turn to pay the utility bill this month. You did pay it, didn't you?" 

"Oh, shit! I . . . I'm going to," he quickly changed his tune. "I just need to sell a painting . . ."

"I thought you had a rich boyfriend," Amy spat out, her acerbic tone grating on his nerves. "Why can't you ask him to help you out with expenses?"

Glancing through the dingy window panes, Justin wondered how big of a splat his body would make on the pavement below, the morning headline flashing before his eyes: **Despondent Artist Jumps From Nine Stories Up!** " _Had_ is the key word there, Amy. I _had_ a rich boyfriend. Calling off our wedding and moving to New York kind of screwed things up for me, you know?" Feeling the membranes in his nose starting to sting, he closed his eyes in misery, determined not to lose it in front of his roommate.

"You broke up?" she asked incredulously. "Daphne told me you two were made for each other . . . that you'd tamed the untamable beast and that she hoped she'd find the man of her dreams someday like you'd found yours. She said she's never seen a greater love." Wrinkling up her forehead, Amy only wanted to know one thing. "How does a love like that not stand the test of time?"

"Yeah," Justin scoffed, slinking off to the privacy of his freezing bedroom to nurse his heartache. "To quote the untamable beast, 'It's only time.'"

\----------------------------

"Oh, Brian, everything looks amazing! You've really turned this place into a home!" Stepping into Britin's foyer with Michael and Ben, Debbie breathed in the holiday atmosphere surrounding her as well as the tantalizing aroma of gingerbread cookies baking in the oven. "So you decided to have all of us out here to your country manor on Christmas Eve?" she asked her host, hugging him tightly. "If I didn't know better, I'd say you've become downright domesticated!"

Brian shrugged at Michael, finally unresistant. "Welcome to Stepford," he said, the playful sarcasm befitting his mood, "where the fags are blissfully happy, healthy, and in the Christmas spirit."

"Another satisfied convert!" Ben laughed. 

Hanging their coats in the entry's closet, Brian escorted his guests into the lavishly decorated great room, where the rest of the gang was already gathered. "What'll it be?" he asked them. "We've got a fully stocked bar. And help yourself to the cakes and pastries on the dining room table. Emmett and Darren are in the kitchen, baking more as we speak."

"When can we open the presents, Dad?" Gus sang out from under the Christmas tree, reading the name tags on all of the gifts. "How about tonight? Please?"

Brian and Lindsay exchanged helpless parent looks - the ones that accompany adorable offsprings' Christmas Eve pleas. "Maybe just one, Sonny Boy," Brian laughed, catching his son in his arms as he sped toward him for a hug.

"Brian, your state-of-the-art kitchen is positively to die for!" Emmett gushed, replenishing the silver cookie tray in the center of the coffee table. "Makes us realize how badly we need to update our appliances, doesn't it, Darren?"

Offering Emmett the cosmo he'd personally mixed for him, Brian gave him a hearty pat on the back. "Sit down and relax," he said. "I don't want you guys to work the entire evening." Turning to Darren, he asked him what he wanted to drink. "Em says you're performing later?" 

Stoking the fire, Ted added two more logs before he returned to Blake's side on the love seat. "I wonder what the poor, downtrodden souls of the world are doing tonight," he mused in mock superiority, his friends counting their blessings as they snickered at his joke, every one of them inwardly vowing to amp up their charitable contributions.

"Not enjoying Christmas Eve in the lap of luxury here at Britin Manor, that's for sure!" Melanie blurted out, giggling at the well-timed hiccup that punctuated the end of her oddly pro-Brian declaration. Setting her cup of eggnog down on the end table, she handed Jenny Rebecca off to her wife. "Here, Linds," she said, slurring her words. "You better take her."

"Are you all right, Mel?" Lindsay asked.

"It's the eggnog," Michael piped up, polishing off his own cup. "It's killer strong!"

Booming laughter filling his house, Brian slipped away from his guests discreetly and made his way up the staircase. Ever thankful for his abundant good fortune, he considered doubling the amount he routinely donated to the Starving Artists Fund, remembering a time when he'd had a starving artist of his own. 

But that had been so long ago. How different his life had become. Shivering at the top of the stairs, he was curious as to where that starving artist-turned-success story could be hiding himself and why in the name of God the second floor of their mansion was so fucking cold, looking around until he found him in the fetal position on top of their bed. 

"I'm NOT afraid!" a curled up, quivering Justin was mumbling in his sleep. "I don't want it. It means nothing," he went on, his teeth starting to chatter.

Jesus! What's he dreaming about now? Brian thought, walking closer and discovering an open window was to blame for the arctic condition of their bedroom.

"How do you expect me to give you a rational response when the circumstances you've presented are completely suppositional, and, as such, have no basis in reality?" Justin choked out.

"Sunshine, wake up! What are you doing in here with the window open?" Brian groaned, sliding it shut. "You're gonna freeze your balls off."

"You don't want to live with someone who sacrificed his life and called it love to be with you? Neither do I." 

Sitting next to him, Brian leaned down and kissed his icy cheek, spying an empty eggnog cup on the nightstand. "How much of this shit did you drink? Justin, can you hear me?" 

Struggling to open his eyes, Justin squinted at Brian, barely making out what he was saying. "Brian . . . you're here," he murmured, still in a daze. "I've missed you so much."

"Yeah, I'm here. Where the hell else would I be?" Brian stretched out beside the thermally challenged mass of flesh and tangled their legs together. "Christ! You're practically frostbitten. How long have you been asleep?" Briskly rubbing his arms, he tried to thaw him out.

Justin nestled into Brian's body, primal instincts drawing him to the heat. "Sleep?" A warmth he hadn't experienced in forever gradually worked itself through his limbs, his brain becoming aware of a glorious softness brushing against his torso. Gazing down at his baby blue sweater, Justin uttered the most beautiful word in the English language. "Cashmere! I own cashmere!"

"You own a closetful of cashmere. I didn't know you felt so strongly about it." 

"And a down comforter!" Justin exclaimed, pulling the feathery cover up to their necks. "I'll never be cold again!"

"You bought it right after we moved in here. Don't you remember? And what was that gibberish you were spewing in your sleep? What had no basis in reality?"

Unbuckling Brian's belt, Justin slid his jeans off of him under the comforter. "Oh, my God! It was awful!" he wailed, tugging his own jeans down, too. "I dreamed we had this horrible emotional discussion the night before our rehearsal dinner. You convinced me the art world in New York was just waiting for me to arrive, and so I fucking moved there to conquer it! I hadn't seen you in so long." He winced at the memory. "I didn't know if I'd ever see you again."

Brian lifted Justin's sweater over his head, and then he shed his black button-down shirt. "Now why the fuck would I want to do that?" he laughed, clearly at a loss. "Your work was getting noticed here in Pittsburgh before we got married. You wouldn't have had to go to New York to conquer the art world." Kissing Justin once again, he started to reminisce. "The night before our rehearsal dinner was great. You told me about the dream you'd had the night before that . . . the one where we were in our new house and I was riding you in the stable, diving into you in the pool, and slamming you on the tennis court." Raising his eyebrows, Brian went on. "When I joked, 'Wouldn't you rather just cuddle?' you said, 'Hell, no! I want you to fuck my brains out!' You do remember that, don't you?"

"Actually, I said, 'Hell, no! I'm gonna blow you, then I want you to fuck my brains out.' You haven't forgotten that, have you?" Justin shimmied under the comforter toward Brian's dick, a memory jog surely in order. 

Fondling the nape of Justin's neck, Brian arched his back, shoving himself all the way down his throat while he sucked his cock with familiar expertise. Wedded bliss . . . So not a farce. "Roll over," he whispered, gently easing out of his mouth. 

Justin inched a hand behind himself when he felt their orgasms building, touching the back of Brian's thigh and unleashing a stream of cum, his body reverberating with sensation. Moments later, Brian slammed into his ass one last time, shooting his own cum deeply inside his hole.

Racing hearts pounding in their chests, Brian slowly eased his tensed-up muscles and lay on top of his husband. "That was an exact replay of the night before our rehearsal dinner!" he gasped, reaching over and taking a clean cum towel from the drawer. "So did our Christmas Eve quickie banish your nightmare into obscurity, or will it haunt you for years to come?" 

"You don't know the half of it!" Justin ranted as they dressed, anxious to share his eggnog-induced hardships. "Amy was a cunt. I had no money for Starbucks. I lived in a nine story walk-up that was the coldest place on the face of the earth. And . . . and . . . I couldn't paint for shit! No one would buy the crap I turned out. Brian, I was poor!"

"That shit must be toxic!" Brian laughed, eyeing the empty cup beside the bed. "What else would make you dream such horse shit?" Tipping his head to kiss Justin's lips, he heard Shanda Leer beginning to entertain their guests downstairs with Brenda Lee's classic rendition of Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree. "We gotta get back to our party . . . and throw out that fucking eggnog!"

 

THE END


End file.
